Syrian ceasefire hangs by bare thread

Less than a week after it began, the Syrian ceasefire hangs by a bare thread.

Pro-regime airstrikes have resumed against rebel-held eastern Aleppo, a day after a US-led coalition raid apparently mistakenly killed scores of Syrian government troops. This against the backdrop of what the Russians claim to be preparations by the rebels for a new counterattack to break the government siege of Aleppo.

The US-led airstrike at remote eastern desert outpost Deir el-Zour on Saturday the 17th is highly problematic: even assuming that the target was thought to be an ISIS facility, it would have been an extremely rare (if not very first) instance of an American raid on the terror group in an area where its only opponent on the ground is the Syrian army. Just what in the world were American and coalition airmen effectively trying to help the Assad regime for?

As such, the incident will probably go down with the Syrian and Russian public as a deliberate provocation - a propaganda coup that Damascus and Moscow are both clearly pushing through their respective state media, so as to gain political cover to become even more inflexible regarding the nebulous sticking points of the ceasefire on their end, namely the delivery of humanitarian aid to east Aleppo. And today's resumption of airstrikes against the besieged rebel enclave is an indication that they're ready to take the kid gloves off.

Having already apologized for the botched raid, the US is now protesting that it in fact notified the Russians in advance about it; while this indicates a lack of coordination between the Russian command in Syria and the regime's local units which were hit, it's sure to give Moscow a pretext to demand that Washington restrict the Western coalition's air activity in the general area of Deir el-Zour (until such time as the joint operations center against ISIS and Al Nusra is established, if at all).

The Axis of Fatima - the Moscow-Tehran-Damascus nexus - was in a clear position of military strength when it acceded to the September 9 accord between John Kerry and Sergey Lavrov; Damascus at least may now have decided that it's time to repay the Deir el-Zour incident by reminding the rebels and their US and Saudi backers just how inferior their bargaining position is in the main Aleppo theater.

Since both sides have reportedly been breaking the truce here and there for days already, the Syrian regime can now resume "barrel bomb" attacks on eastern Aleppo while still appearing reasonably committed to a general "cessation of hostilities" - after all, no rational party can take so much provocation lying down, however otherwise it remains open to peaceful resolution. That makes it more likely that the rebels will respond in kind, and before long a new cycle of escalation will bring a nasty end to the ceasefire altogether. As of this moment, it will be a miracle if anything remains of the truce at all in another week's time.

Obama and Kerry can now plead all they want with Putin and Lavrov that one unfortunate incident doesn't tip the balance of onus for full implementation of the truce against the US; more realistically, events this past weekend will constrict Washington's freedom of action on the Syrian issue even more in relation to its desired end goal of a pro-Western democracy.